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Conserving cultures other than one’s own and working from the outside provokes questions of authority and the unknown in materials conservation. This paper focuses on identifying knowledge for cultural materials conservation of world culture objects, specifically a rare Indonesian musical instrument known as a bundengan. The study examines the ambiguous tensions surrounding a rare instrument located in an archive geographically isolated from its source community and how it acts as a social trigger to revive living heritage and performance practices, and to build culturally responsible communities of practice in conservation. An ontological framework to expand the knowledge of objects within and outside the archive is presented. The reiterative ontology draws on four disciplinary domains – archives, ethnomusicology, conservation, and performance – to build upon processual knowledge and networks of care, allowing deep connections with contemporary performance communities to emerge.

Dialogues around universal ‘best’ practices in conservation are challenging as are demarkations between the East and West, Europe and Asia, and the global north and south. Institutions, networks of care and materials conservation professionals have thereby struggled with ‘a long-standing epistemological debate about the nature of knowledge and expertise between dominant positivist and alternative non-positivist approaches’ (Beebeejaun et al. Citation2013, p. 2). What works in various geographical contexts is poised against an inherent tension between object centred and scientific processes, to those that are value based and socially situated alongside differences in institutional cultures, developmental histories and disciplinary leader’s foci.

The artwork by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, The outlands, 2011 is a time-based art installation composed of sculptural, software and gaming technology exhibited in a gallery space. The work was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales after being awarded the 2011 Anne Landa Award Unguided Tours exhibition prize but has not been installed since. As such, any future iterations will be challenging due to its condition, functionality and machine dependency. This paper explores the value of installing Haines’ and Hinterding’s time-based art installation to chart the conservation assessment processes of documentation, functionality testing and the install itself. It discusses how in-situ artist interview affords artistic agency and contributes knowledge on the materials, conceptual and technical elements of the work, functional limitations and its future conservation management. The outcomes of the conservation interactions have allowed for a deeper understanding of conservation as a reiterative process as issues of software and hardware dependencies, and the situated and spatial relationships between various elements became more salient. This has assisted conservators in preparing for object obsolescence and aims to support future re-activations of The outlands, 2011.

The circulation of counterfeit paintings in In- donesia’s art centres remains, as it does across the globe, a sensitive issue that distorts the cul- tural narrative and threatens the intellectual property of artists and their legacy. This paper focuses on contemporary Indonesian artist Heri Dono and the methods which he has adopted to protect his intellectual property in response to counterfeit paintings on the market bearing his signature. In 2015, Dono established a personal archive at his studio in Yogyakarta in which he has documented his artistic production since 1979. In 2017, in parallel with the development of the archive, the Studio Kalahan Instagram account began publishing images of counterfeit paintings in Dono’s signature style. Informed by interviews with Dono and other contem- porary Indonesian artists, this research aims to understand issues surrounding the veracity and legacy of the physical and digital archive and in- tegrated ways of building a secure artist record.

The series of fourteen works that comprise Esteban Villanueva’s The Basi Revolt is examined historically and physically to have a clear idea of the paintings’ material authenticity, particularly necessary for conservation treatment. Among the questions dealt with involved the production and authorship, the extent of variation of the surface and paint layers, as well as the pigment types across all fourteen works. As The Basi Revolt is a series that depicts an important historical event in the Philippines, the course of conservation needs to be assessed as a whole, to reinstate a unified visual narrative. Methods used to attempt to answer these involved the examination of available historical records and the use of reflected raking and ultra-violet lights, microscopic magnification, and elemental analysis. To have a much stronger evidence-based understanding of The Basi Revolt, as well as of other early 19th century paintings by Filipino artists, setting up a database of the range of materials available and used during that time is essential for their conservation.

Papers in this volume focus on geographic locations drawn from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Eastern borders of Australia. In these parts of the world, we all know that there is a long record of active use and conservation of material culture through traditional systems, while the professionalised practice of conservation engendered by its existence, has a relatively recent history.

Indonesia is witnessing a growth in the art market in addition to the increased protection of its national cultural heritage. This raises questions about the current position of art and heritage conservation as a profession, discipline, and professional practice in Indonesia to support the preservation of its ‘old culture (s)’. In addressing the themes of the conference, this paper examines the definition of conservation in Indonesia and explores the opportunities for the renewal of ‘old cultures’ for an Indonesian practice of conservation to emerge as distinct from other parts of the world. we argue that conservation should meet the ‘place-based’dimensions of tradition, living cultures, climate, materiality, and natural disasters. The approach used includes a literature review, archival research, policy analysis, and semi-structured interviews. The practices of neighbouring countries are also explored for comparative purposes. The results show that existing policies are in place to support the conservation of cultural materials in Indonesia; however, these do not address the development or sustainability of the profession and discipline for a shared thought style to emerge. The research also indicates that there is a distinct line of separation between the conservation of cultural heritage compared to the fine arts.

This paper aims to examine the role of living cultural heritage to materials conservation and restoration of retablos and santos at the National Museum of Fine Arts in the Philippines (NMP) and the Parish Church of La Purísima Concepción in Guiuan. In researching the restoration practices of cultural communities that retablos and santos hold significance to, this paper is framed by textual analysis, and interviews with heritage, ecclesiastic and conservation professionals. With ever-increasing cultural homogenisation, the importance of conservators working towards preventing cultural identities from being absorbed by universal discourses and popular cultures are argued in this paper. In reflecting upon knowledge systems and communication platforms that support conservation, the exchange of knowledge, its usability and wide audience possibilities as necessary pathways to preserving memory for living and future generations will be focused upon.

Esteban Villanueva’s fourteen 1821 paintings, the Basi Revolt Paintings of Ilocos, are valued for their representation of the conflict between the Spanish colonial administration and Filipino Ilocano insurgents. As pictorial documents representing the emergence of secular artistic practice in the Philippines, they possess significant social and historical narratives of national independence and the Ilocano’s strength of character. Damage, previous restorations and the effects of tropical climates have not been kind to the Basi Revolt paintings and their visual reading is complex. This paper reports on the technical and materials analysis of the paintings, documentation, digitisation and image analysis as a conservation model to broaden perspectives on knowledge acquisition in conservation. Conservation decision making in the Philippines is an additional focus of the paper, with an examination of localised values, and the trajectory and life of the paintings to inform conservation actions and creative processes.

Ways of knowing and understanding the artistic process are not fixed, and there are multiple perceptions that rely on the experience of the viewer and sources that inform them. this paper presents a case study of a conservation residency and collaborative treatment of indonesian artist Entang wiharso’s ‘landscaping My Brain’ (2001) oil on canvas triptych painting, to examine how we understand the artistic process from a conservation perspective and how this material knowledge contributes to the artist record. an interdisciplinary methodology for the conservation treatment of wiharso’s painting relied on technical and visual examination of the artwork in partnership with artist interviews and archival research. the residency concluded with an exhibition of the painting in an ‘active state of conservation’, highlighting the conservation decisionmaking process as value based and culturally grounded, leading to questions of authority, the role of technical-conservation expertise, what approaches work best, who should do the work and what knowledge informs it. in considering how we understand the artistic process, this paper will draw on the importance of practice-based interdisciplinary learning between conservator, artist, collector, curator and students, and the potential for collaboration and knowledge building at the intersection of these disciplines.

Preventive conservation, with its origins grounded in the material fabric of cultural material, is in a period of transformation, with numerous practitioners, in and outside of the field of conservation, considering its broader and holistic objectives. The conventional tools for the assertion of preventive conservation principles, namely the assessment and management of risks to cultural material from the ‘ten agents of deterioration’, have a central focus on the primacy of physical materials and degradation, with less clear relationships with people, place, and time in their modelling. With a case study focus on collections in the Philippines, this paper argues for a practice of preventive conservation that incorporates a balanced assessment and broader thinking around the contexts of objects, people, place, and time. The case studies of ecclesiastical Church collections, and museum environments in the Philippines, demonstrate how the interdependency of objects, people, place and time forms a holistic and conceptual preventive conservation framework. Through a cyclic renegotiation of these four parameters, this paper speculates on the gaps and opportunities for an inclusive view of preventive conservation that is current and more sustainable.

The widespread circulation of paintings lacking a secure provenance within the Indonesian art market is an increasingly prevalent issue that questions trust, damages reputations and collective cultural narratives. In the long-term, this may impact on the credibility of artists, their work and the international art market. Under the current Indonesian copyright laws, replicating a painting is not considered a crime of art forgery, rather a crime of autograph forgery, a loophole that has allowed the practice of forgery to grow. Despite widespread claims of problematic paintings appearing in cultural collections over recent years, there has been little scholarly research to map the scope of counterfeit painting circulation within the market. Building on this research gap and the themes of the conference, this paper will provide a current understanding of art fraud in Indonesia based on research undertaken on the Authentication, Attribution and the Art Market in Indonesia: Understanding issues of art attribution in contemporary Indonesia. This research is interdisciplinary in its scope and is grounded in the art historical, socio-political and socio economic context of cultural and artistic production in Indonesia, from the early twentieth century to the contemporary art world of today. By locating the study within a regionally relevant framework, this paper aims to provide a current understanding of issues of authenticity in Indonesia and is a targeted response to the need for a materials evidence based framework for the research, identification and documentation of questionable paintings, their production and circulation in the region.

In this paper, synchrotron based infrared micro-spectroscopy was utilized to describe the degradation profile of fibroin contained in silk textiles (Bombyx mori). The spatial distributions of deterioration effects in silk samples artificially aged at an assortment of conditions (thermal, hydrolytic and ultraviolet) were distinctly visualised and in accordance with the findings from conventional infrared spectroscopy in references. Further this method was applied on a historic sample from a private collection in Melbourne, and presented consistent results. This established synchrotron IR chemical mapping method could enable museum professionals to better understand the preservation state of historic silk and make informed decisions for conservation.

ContextOur collective experience over 30 years of organising, fine-tuning, creating unique projects and running what has become known as the Warman Design and Build Competition (WD&B) is presented. The competition is for students in the second year of undergraduate courses in mechanical engineering, broadly defined, in Australian and New Zealand universities. The idea of running a variant of the WD&B as a high school STEM project is being considered.PurposeWe wished to establish firm data supporting the efficacy of the WD&B and indicate ways in which the current project and competition might be promoted and extended in its reach.ApproachOngoing assessment of student response to the competition since its inception, and the scope of experience students gained has been conducted, over what has been a period of rapid industry transition, and links between the WD&B and the development of Engineers Australia’s Stage 1 Competencies are shown.In 2017, more extensive surveys than in the past were conducted seeking the opinions of:• Students competing at Campus level,• Students competing at the National Final,• Campus Organisers, and• Members of the Mechanical College, EA (part of a broader survey of design practice).ResultsThe conclusions drawn from all surveys are highlighted with strong support and evidence for positive learning arising from the WD&B.The adoption of the WD&B at the University of Melbourne in 2010 and reflections on their experience provide an exemplar for the continued expansion of the WD&B. It is clear the project is successful in:• integrating practical engineering with coursework,• developing ‘work readiness’, and• providing a ‘coat-hanger’ to support the engineering sciences.ConclusionsThe WD&B has been an outstanding success over its 30-year life. In the changing educational world, the plan is to ensure that it continues to meet educational needs and course structures and, if necessary or desirable, make appropriate changes. The question of entering t

CONTEXT Employer feedback consistently reports gaps in graduate professional capabilities. Developing graduates’ work readiness is a goal of growing importance in the tertiary sector. Institutions are embedding curriculum and co- and extra-curricular activities to better develop student employability capabilities. While work placements are widely viewed as the best way to develop employability, employability learning activities in the curriculum can augment experiential learning. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to explore the question What preparation can develop student communication, networking and reflection skills before undertaking an engineering work placement? APPROACH A number of frameworks were used to guide development of new curriculum for employability. Eyler’s reflective practice framework was used to enhance learning from experience, and an affordance model framework was used to scaffold learning, to prioritize learning during workshops to higher order skill development. A cultural values framework was used to guide learning about workplace culture. RESULTS A workshop was developed for students looking for a placement that focuses on the application, networking and interviewing. A second workshop was developed for students who had already sourced a placement that focuses on key workplace learning opportunities: meetings, networking and reflection on experience. CONCLUSIONS Well designed workshops can be an effective way to enhance student learning. Evaluation of outcomes and impact of the teaching innovation in employability lag interventions by several years, so longitudinal studies need to be carried out for a full evaluation.

Concept inventories are tests used to elicit student misunderstandings and misconceptions. Traditionally, they exist as a set of multiple-choice questions (MCQs), including the correct option, as well as some distractors (Libarkin, 2008). This multiple-choice format allows for faster marking and feedback; however, it does not identify conceptual misunderstandings, or if a student has guessed the correct answer. By adding a space for students to add a textual justification (Goncher, Jayalath, & Boles, 2016), their answers can be checked to ensure that the concepts are correctly understood. Automated textual analysis will allow insights to be uncovered, and to help speed up the process of grading to give feedback to students and informing educators. As part of that process, we endeavour to address the following questions: 1. What pointers can be identified that indicate a student’s conceptual understanding? 2. What conclusions can we make from these identified pointers to conceptual understanding? Over the past four years, two concept inventories have been deployed, both with multiple choice questions, as well as a free text field for students to give reasoning and explanation. We will combine several machine learning techniques to analyse the textual response data, including: • Word2vec – which allows words to be modelled as vectors, for easier computation (Mikolov, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, 2013) • LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) – Allows classification and grouping of topics and areas (Blei, et al., 2003) • SVMs (Support vector machines) – which allow classification to be performed and similar areas grouped Four pointers were identified to help to automatically determine if conceptual understanding is present. The first three pointers can be determined with certainty, the fourth “validity of the response” is one that is traditionally determined by a human marker. Comparing with an expert marked dataset, the algorithm to determine this pointer achieved a 75%